


grindylow

by archipelago



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining, UST, and romantic feelings, or well maybe just unresolved sexual feelings, the potter-evans wedding, things are generally unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7700809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archipelago/pseuds/archipelago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I guess I thought we had time. All of us, all four of us—even with the war, I thought we’d have time to just…be young.” Sirius smiles, but it’s a brittle, painful thing to see. Remus wants to touch the corner of his mouth—lightly, just once, and only because that’s usually where Sirius keeps all his laughter—but he doesn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Remus pines for Sirius, who pines for James (sort of), who is married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grindylow

It’s just after ten when Remus notices that Sirius has disappeared. He has a butterbeer in his hand—and James will never let that go if he notices, but Merlin, someone has to be alert, and isn’t it always Remus’s job to be the responsible one?—and he downs the rest as he scans the room.

Frank and Alice offered to host the reception (if it could be called that), and Frank’s terrifying mother didn’t object to them using her front parlor, so most of the Order of the Phoenix is crammed onto her uncomfortable, Victorian-looking furniture, sipping their drinks and laughing like there isn’t a war on. 

It was probably a beautifully appointed room, before the war, but it’s not as well-kept as Remus imagines it once was. Everything is dusty, some of the lampshades cracked with age and misuse, and there’s sun damage on the floor where the rug used to be and isn’t anymore. Still, it’s better than any other option they had—Lily and James share a tiny flat that barely holds the two of them, let alone the entire Order. They were overjoyed when Frank told them his mother offered them the room.

Mrs. Longbottom actually seems to be enjoying the party, much to Remus’ surprise. She’s never given him the impression that she’s a woman who enjoys enjoying things, and yet she has spent the last twenty minutes holding Peter hostage in the corner, drinking firewhisky after firewhisky and talking about the newlyweds’ lovely vows. Peter stares at Remus with desperate eyes.

“Sirius?” Remus mouths at him.

Peter frowns and glances around before shrugging helplessly.

James and Lily dissolve into laughter at some joke of Arthur’s, drawing the attention of the room, and Remus uses the moment to slip out of the parlor and into the hallway. His feet are silent on the thick rug as he heads out to the front door and slips outside.

Sirius is on the stoop, cigarette in hand, eyes on the stars.

“Knew you’d come find me,” he says, flicking ash into the flowerbed.

Remus frowns at him. “If you set Mrs. L’s house on fire, she’ll _avada_ you before any of us can stop her.”

Sirius is quiet for a moment, and then his face breaks into a grin. He laughs, low and quiet, but in the stillness of the night, it sounds loud, anyway.

“I was trying to think of a witty way to refute that, but there is none. She really would, wouldn’t she? Merlin, how did Frank survive childhood?”

Slipping down onto the step beside Sirius, Remus knocks him with an elbow. “Spine of steel, that one. Nothing scares him.”

They sit side-by-side for a moment, staring out across the lawn. The Longbottom home isn’t stately, like some of the old pureblood mansions, but it’s still beautiful. What it lacks in size and prestige it makes up for in space—country all around them, few neighbors within any reasonable distance. Being outside the city, outside of Hogwarts and endless plans and field missions and worry—it almost feels like a normal night, with normal friends, at a normal wedding.

Almost.

“I thought they’d wait,” Sirius says, apropos of nothing. He takes another drag of the cigarette, which is nearly down to the filter. The tip glows red in the darkness, and then he drops it onto the stone steps, grinding it out with his heel. He releases the smoke from his lungs, a cloud of gray that disappears on a night breeze.

Remus doesn’t have to ask what Sirius means. He knows. He’s always known. “I don’t know why you thought that. No one else did.”

Sirius shrugs. He runs a hand through his long, dark hair. “Wishful thinking, maybe? We were all students just a few months ago—can you imagine? It feels like a lifetime. And he was always…”

“Such a cad?” Remus suggests, dodging a smack to the back of the head.

“No! I mean, yes, James was definitely a cad, but no, that’s not what I meant.” Sirius sighs and leans into Remus’s arm, the heat of him bleeding through Remus’s dress shirt.

He has to know, Remus thinks. Even Peter knows, guessed months ago, brought it up in conversation with a teasing smile and expected Remus to laugh, too.

Then again, Peter’s always been more observant than most people realize. Maybe Remus is wrong, maybe he’s blown it all out of proportion in his head again.

“I guess I thought we had time. All of us, all four of us—even with the war, I thought we’d have time to just…be young.” Sirius smiles, but it’s a brittle, painful thing to see. Remus wants to touch the corner of his mouth—lightly, just once, and only because that’s usually where Sirius keeps all his laughter—but he doesn’t.

Remus has always been very good at denying himself things he can’t have.

“And now he’s married,” Remus finishes, and Sirius nods. “Are you happy for him?”

Sirius turns his head and catches Remus’s eye, and their faces are close—close in a way that’s deliberate? Merlin, Remus can’t tell, and he wishes beyond anything that he could. When Sirius speaks, he does so in a whisper. 

“I really am.”

There’s something in his stare—a weightiness that Remus isn’t used to. He knows that they don’t discuss how Sirius feels about James, that they haven’t done since fifth year when Remus caught Sirius touching himself to an old picture of the pair of them. They’d had a frank discussion about it that one time, and then they’d never mentioned it directly again. They talk around the issue, only ever speaking of it obliquely, through veiled references and layers of layers of subtext.

Since the engagement, since everything—Sirius hasn’t mentioned it once. He threw himself into being the _best_ best man, and he never let Remus catch him alone long enough to ask him any questions, direct or otherwise. Remus let it go months ago, and now he wishes he hadn’t.

“I am so happy for him. For both of them,” Sirius says. His voice is still hushed, and there’s something about this moment that is strange and quiet and—nearly holy. Remus feels like he’s hearing Sirius’s confession.

“I love them both. I thought this would be hard, but instead it’s—it’s easy.”

“It doesn’t hurt?” Remus asks because seeing Sirius like this is killing him, so how can Sirius find all of this easy?

Sirius laughs, the sound bright. “Oh Merlin, it fucking kills. But I never had any hope, you know? Maybe if I had, I’d feel differently right now. But they’re so happy that—it’s worth it, you know? It’s worth everything. And so here I am.” He leans back, gestures wide with his arms. “Happy as a grindylow.”

Remus aches somewhere deep in his chest. He ignores it. He’s ignored it for years, and he probably always will because it’s fine. One day, Sirius will be happy, and that will be worth all of this, every moment. That will be worth everything. So, here is Remus. Happy as a grindylow.

“Let’s go inside, get smashed,” he suggests, knowing that he’s going to stick to butterbeer no matter what Sirius says. “Mrs. L is letting us all stay in her extra rooms, since we already have the wards up here.”

Sirius nods and slaps his thighs before standing up and stretching. He nearly clocks Remus across the face with an elbow, and he laughs when Remus has to dodge out of the way. He walks to the door, Remus on his heels, and then turns at the last second. Remus lurches a bit in an effort not to fall into him. Sirius’s hand is on the doorknob behind his back, but he doesn’t turn it. 

“What are you doing?” Remus asks, frowning. They’re close again—too close, really. Remus can smell cigarettes and Sirius’s god-awful aftershave and even though he should step away, he doesn’t. Stepping away feels like admitting that he’s noticed how close they are.

“I don’t really know,” Sirius says, blurting it out around a laugh. It only lasts a moment. His eyes are large and dark, and he goes suddenly serious when Remus doesn’t move back, doesn’t laugh as well, doesn’t react at all. “I’m…thinking, I suppose.”

Remus swallows, and when he sees Sirius tracking the movement of his throat, he does it again. “About what?”

Sirius looks back up at Remus’s face, and there it is, his laughter, sitting right in the corner of his mouth like it never left. 

“Don’t be dense, Moony,” he says, and then turns the knob and slips inside before Remus can say another word.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a vague idea of turning this into a short series--a few fics, all around this size, of Sirius and Remus figuring their shit out only to have the inevitable happen. I make no promises, but we'll see.
> 
> I read HPaTCC and had a lot of feelings, and for some reason they all came out in Marauders-era fic--which is something I haven't written in a truly embarrassing number of years, so. Un-beta'd, all mistakes are my own, let me know what you think, etc. etc.


End file.
